Turgenev, Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories

8/9/2019 Turgenev, Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories

1/114

Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories [withaccents]

Project Gutenberg's Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories, by Ivan Turgenev #5 in our series by Ivan

Turgenev

Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before

downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it.

Do not change or edit the header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the

bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file

may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get

involved.

**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****

Title: Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories

Author: Ivan Turgenev

Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7120] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This filewas first posted on March 12, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KNOCK, KNOCK AND OTHERS ***

Produced by Thomas Berger, Eric Eldred, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

The Novels Of Ivan Turgenev

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK And Other Stories

Translated From The Russian By Constance Garnett

* * * * *

CONTENTS:

Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories [with accents] 1


2/114

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK

THE INN

LIEUTENANT YERGUNOV'S STORY

THE DOG

THE WATCH

* * * * *

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK

A STUDY

I

We all settled down in a circle and our good friend Alexandr Vassilyevitch Ridel (his surname was German

but he was Russian to the marrow of his bones) began as follows:

I am going to tell you a story, friends, of something that happened to me in the 'thirties ... forty years ago as

you see. I will be brief--and don't you interrupt me.

I was living at the time in Petersburg and had only just left the University. My brother was a lieutenant in the

horse-guard artillery. His battery was stationed at Krasnoe Selo--it was summer time. My brother lodged not

at Krasnoe Selo itself but in one of the neighbouring villages; I stayed with him more than once and made the

acquaintance of all his comrades. He was living in a fairly decent cottage, together with another officer of his

battery, whose name was Ilya Stepanitch Tyeglev. I became particularly friendly with him.

Marlinsky is out of date now--no one reads him--and even his name is jeered at; but in the 'thirties his fame

was above everyone's--and in the opinion of the young people of the day Pushkin could not hold candle to

him. He not only enjoyed the reputation of being the foremost Russian writer; but--something much more

difficult and more rarely met with--he did to some extent leave his mark on his generation. One came across

heroes _ la_ Marlinsky everywhere, especially in the provinces and especially among infantry and artillery

men; they talked and corresponded in his language; behaved with gloomy reserve in society--"with tempest in

the soul and flame in the blood" like Lieutenant Byelosov in the "Frigate Hope." Women's hearts were

"devoured" by them. The adjective applied to them in those days was "fatal." The type, as we all know,

survived for many years, to the days of Petchorin. [Footnote: The leading character in Lermontov's A Hero of

Our Time.--_Translator's Note_.] All sorts of elements were mingled in that type. Byronism, romanticism,

reminiscences of the French Revolution, of the Dekabrists--and the worship of Napoleon; faith in destiny, inone's star, in strength of will; pose and fine phrases--and a miserable sense of the emptiness of life; uneasy

pangs of petty vanity--and genuine strength and daring; generous impulses--and defective education,

ignorance; aristocratic airs--and delight in trivial foppery.... But enough of these general reflections. I

promised to tell you the story.

II

Lieutenant Tyeglev belonged precisely to the class of those "fatal" individuals, though he did not possess the

exterior commonly associated with them; he was not, for instance, in the least like Lermontov's "fatalist." He

was a man of medium height, fairly solid and round-shouldered, with fair, almost white eyebrows and

eyelashes; he had a round, fresh, rosy-cheeked face, a turn-up nose, a low forehead with the hair growing



3/114

thick over the temples, and full, well-shaped, always immobile lips: he never laughed, never even smiled.

Only when he was tired and out of heart he showed his square teeth, white as sugar. The same artificial

immobility was imprinted on all his features: had it not been for that, they would have had a good-natured

expression. His small green eyes with yellow lashes were the only thing not quite ordinary in his face: his

right eye was very slightly higher than his left and the left eyelid drooped a little, which made his eyes look

different, strange and drowsy. Tyeglev's countenance, which was not, however, without a certain

attractiveness, almost always wore an expression of discontent mingled with perplexity, as though he werechasing within himself a gloomy thought which he was never able to catch. At the same time he did not give

one the impression of being stuck up: he might rather have been taken for an aggrieved than a haughty man.

He spoke very little, hesitatingly, in a husky voice, with unnecessary repetitions. Unlike most "fatalists," he

did not use particularly elaborate expressions in speaking and only had recourse to them in writing; his

handwriting was quite like a child's. His superiors regarded him as an officer of no great merit--not

particularly capable and not over-zealous. The brigadier-general, a man of German extraction, used to say of

him: "He has punctuality but not precision." With the soldiers, too, Tyeglev had the character of being neither

one thing nor the other. He lived modestly, in accordance with his means. He had been left an orphan at nine

years old: his father and mother were drowned when they were being ferried across the Oka in the spring

floods. He had been educated at a private school, where he had the reputation of being one of the slowest and

quietest of the boys, and at his own earnest desire and through the good offices of a cousin who was a man of

influence, he obtained a commission in the horse-guards artillery; and, though with some difficulty, passed his

examination first as an ensign and then as a second lieutenant. His relations with other officers were

somewhat strained. He was not liked, was rarely visited--and he hardly went to see anyone. He felt the

presence of strangers a constraint; he instantly became awkward and unnatural ... he had no instinct for

comradeship and was not on really intimate terms with anyone. But he was respected, and respected not for

his character nor for his intelligence and education--but because the stamp which distinguishes "fatal" people

was discerned in him. No one of his fellow officers expected that Tyeglev would make a career or distinguish

himself in any way; but that Tyeglev might do something extraordinary or that Tyeglev might become a

Napoleon was not considered impossible. For that is a matter of a man's "star"--and he was regarded as a

"man of destiny," just as there are "men of sighs" and "of tears."

III

Two incidents that marked the first steps in his career did a great deal to strengthen his "fatal" reputation. On

the very first day after receiving his commission--about the middle of March--he was walking with other

newly promoted officers in full dress uniform along the embankment. The spring had come early that year, the

Neva was melting; the bigger blocks of ice had gone but the whole river was choked up with a dense mass of

thawing icicles. The young men were talking and laughing ... suddenly one of them stopped: he saw a little

dog some twenty paces from the bank on the slowly moving surface of the river. Perched on a projecting piece

of ice it was whining and trembling all over. "It will be drowned," said the officer through his teeth. The dog

was slowly being carried past one of the sloping gangways that led down to the river. All at once Tyeglev

without saying a word ran down this gangway and over the thin ice, sinking in and leaping out again, reached

the dog, seized it by the scruff of the neck and getting safely back to the bank, put it down on the pavement.The danger to which Tyeglev had exposed himself was so great, his action was so unexpected, that his

companions were dumbfoundered--and only spoke all at once, when he had called a cab to drive home: his

uniform was wet all over. In response to their exclamations, Tyeglev replied coolly that there was no escaping

one's destiny--and told the cabman to drive on.

"You might at least take the dog with you as a souvenir," cried one of the officers. But Tyeglev merely waved

his hand, and his comrades looked at each other in silent amazement.

The second incident occurred a few days later, at a card party at the battery commander's. Tyeglev sat in the

corner and took no part in the play. "Oh, if only I had a grandmother to tell me beforehand what cards will

win, as in Pushkin's _Queen of Spades_," cried a lieutenant whose losses had nearly reached three thousand.



4/114

Tyeglev approached the table in silence, took up a pack, cut it, and saying "the six of diamonds," turned the

pack up: the six of diamonds was the bottom card. "The ace of clubs!" he said and cut again: the bottom card

turned out to be the ace of clubs. "The king of diamonds!" he said for the third time in an angry whisper

through his clenched teeth--and he was right the third time, too ... and he suddenly turned crimson. He

probably had not expected it himself. "A capital trick! Do it again," observed the commanding officer of the

battery. "I don't go in for tricks," Tyeglev answered drily and walked into the other room. How it happened

that he guessed the card right, I can't pretend to explain: but I saw it with my own eyes. Many of the playerspresent tried to do the same--and not one of them succeeded: one or two did guess one card but never two in

succession. And Tyeglev had guessed three! This incident strengthened still further his reputation as a

mysterious, fatal character. It has often occurred to me since that if he had not succeeded in the trick with the

cards, there is no knowing what turn it would have taken and how he would have looked at himself; but this

unexpected success clinched the matter.

IV

It may well be understood that Tyeglev clutched at this reputation. It gave him a special significance, a special

colour ... "_Cela le posait_," as the French express it--and with his limited intelligence, scanty education and

immense vanity, such a reputation just suited him. It was difficult to acquire it but to keep it up cost nothing:

he had only to remain silent and hold himself aloof. But it was not owing to this reputation that I made friends

with Tyeglev and, I may say, grew fond of him. I liked him in the first place because I was rather an

unsociable creature myself--and saw in him one of my own sort, and secondly, because he was a very

good-natured fellow and in reality, very simple-hearted. He aroused in me a feeling of something like

compassion; it seemed to me that apart from his affected "fatality," he really was weighed down by a tragic

fate which he did not himself suspect. I need hardly say I did not express this feeling to him: could anything

be more insulting to a "fatal" hero than to be an object of pity? And Tyeglev, on his side, was well-disposed to

me; with me he felt at ease, with me he used to talk--in my presence he ventured to leave the strange pedestal

on which he had been placed either by his own efforts or by chance. Agonisingly, morbidly vain as he was,

yet he was probably aware in the depths of his soul that there was nothing to justify his vanity, and that others

might perhaps look down on him ... but I, a boy of nineteen, put no constraint on him; the dread of saying

something stupid, inappropriate, did not oppress his ever-apprehensive heart in my presence. He sometimeseven chattered freely; and well it was for him that no one heard his chatter except me! His reputation would

not have lasted long. He not only knew very little, but read hardly anything and confined himself to picking

up stories and anecdotes of a certain kind. He believed in presentiments, predictions, omens, meetings, lucky

and unlucky days, in the persecution and benevolence of destiny, in the mysterious significance of life, in fact.

He even believed in certain "climacteric" years which someone had mentioned in his presence and the

meaning of which he did not himself very well understand. "Fatal" men of the true stamp ought not to betray

such beliefs: they ought to inspire them in others.... But I was the only one who knew Tyeglev on that side.

V

One day--I remember it was St. Elijah's day, July 20th--I came to stay with my brother and did not find him athome: he had been ordered off for a whole week somewhere. I did not want to go back to Petersburg; I

sauntered about the neighbouring marshes, killed a brace of snipe and spent the evening with Tyeglev under

the shelter of an empty barn where he had, as he expressed it, set up his summer residence. We had a little

conversation but for the most part drank tea, smoked pipes and talked sometimes to our host, a Russianised

Finn or to the pedlar who used to hang about the battery selling "fi-ine oranges and lemons," a charming and

lively person who in addition to other talents could play the guitar and used to tell us of the unhappy love

which he cherished in his young days for the daughter of a policeman. Now that he was older, this Don Juan

in a gay cotton shirt had no experience of unsuccessful love affairs. Before the doors of our barn stretched a

wide plain gradually sloping away in the distance; a little river gleamed here and there in the winding hollows;

low growing woods could be seen further on the horizon. Night was coming on and we were left alone. As

night fell a fine damp mist descended upon the earth, and, growing thicker and thicker, passed into a dense



5/114

fog. The moon rose up into the sky; the fog was soaked through and through and, as it were, shimmering with

golden light. Everything was strangely shifting, veiled and confused; the faraway looked near, the near looked

far away, what was big looked small and what was small looked big ... everything became dim and full of

light. We seemed to be in fairyland, in a world of whitish-golden mist, deep stillness, delicate sleep.... And

how mysteriously, like sparks of silver, the stars filtered through the mist! We were both silent. The fantastic

beauty of the night worked upon us: it put us into the mood for the fantastic.

VI

Tyeglev was the first to speak and talked with his usual hesitating incompleted sentences and repetitions about

presentiments ... about ghosts. On exactly such a night, according to him, one of his friends, a student who

had just taken the place of tutor to two orphans and was sleeping with them in a lodge in the garden, saw a

woman's figure bending over their beds and next day recognised the figure in a portrait of the mother of the

orphans which he had not previously noticed. Then Tyeglev told me that his parents had heard for several

days before their death the sound of rushing water; that his grandfather had been saved from death in the

battle of Borodino through suddenly stooping down to pick up a simple grey pebble at the very instant when a

volley of grape-shot flew over his head and broke his long black plume. Tyeglev even promised to show me

the very pebble which had saved his grandfather and which he had mounted into a medallion. Then he talked

of the lofty destination of every man and of his own in particular and added that he still believed in it and that

if he ever had any doubts on that subject he would know how to be rid of them and of his life, as life would

then lose all significance for him. "You imagine perhaps," he brought out, glancing askance at me, "that I

shouldn't have the spirit to do it? You don't know me ... I have a will of iron."

"Well said," I thought to myself.

Tyeglev pondered, heaved a deep sigh and dropping his chibouk out of his hand, informed me that that day

was a very important one for him. "This is the prophet Elijah's day--my name day.... It is ... it is always for me

a difficult time."

I made no answer and only looked at him as he sat facing me, bent, round-shouldered, and clumsy, with hisdrowsy, lustreless eyes fixed on the ground.

"An old beggar woman" (Tyeglev never let a single beggar pass without giving alms) "told me to-day," he

went on, "that she would pray for my soul.... Isn't that strange?"

"Why does the man want to be always bothering about himself!" I thought again. I must add, however, that of

late I had begun noticing an unusual expression of anxiety and uneasiness on Tyeglev's face, and it was not a

"fatal" melancholy: something really was fretting and worrying him. On this occasion, too, I was struck by the

dejected expression of his face. Were not those very doubts of which he had spoken to me beginning to assail

him? Tyeglev's comrades had told me that not long before he had sent to the authorities a project for some

reforms in the artillery department and that the project had been returned to him "with a comment," that is, areprimand. Knowing his character, I had no doubt that such contemptuous treatment by his superior officers

had deeply mortified him. But the change that I fancied I saw in Tyeglev was more like sadness and there was

a more personal note about it.

"It's getting damp, though," he brought out at last and he shrugged his shoulders. "Let us go into the hut--and

it's bed-time, too." He had the habit of shrugging his shoulders and turning his head from side to side, putting

his right hand to his throat as he did so, as though his cravat were constricting it. Tyeglev's character was

expressed, so at least it seemed to me, in this uneasy and nervous movement. He, too, felt constricted in the

world.

We went back into the hut, and both lay down on benches, he in the corner facing the door and I on the



6/114

opposite side.

VII

Tyeglev was for a long time turning from side to side on his bench and I could not get to sleep, either.

Whether his stories had excited my nerves or the strange night had fevered my blood--anyway, I could not go

to sleep. All inclination for sleep disappeared at last and I lay with my eyes open and thought, thoughtintensely, goodness knows of what; of most senseless trifles--as always happens when one is sleepless.

Turning from side to side I stretched out my hands.... My finger hit one of the beams of the wall. It emitted a

faint but resounding, and as it were, prolonged note.... I must have struck a hollow place.

I tapped again ... this time on purpose. The same sound was repeated. I knocked again.... All at once Tyeglev

raised his head.

"Ridel!" he said, "do you hear? Someone is knocking under the window."

I pretended to be asleep. The fancy suddenly took me to play a trick at the expense of my "fatal" friend. I

could not sleep, anyway.

He let his head sink on the pillow. I waited for a little and again knocked three times in succession.

Tyeglev sat up again and listened. I tapped again. I was lying facing him but he could not see my hand.... I put

it behind me under the bedclothes.

"Ridel!" cried Tyeglev.

I did not answer.

"Ridel!" he repeated loudly. "Ridel!"

"Eh? What is it?" I said as though just waking up.

"Don't you hear, someone keeps knocking under the window, wants to come in, I suppose."

"Some passer-by," I muttered.

"Then we must let him in or find out who it is."

But I made no answer, pretending to be asleep.

Several minutes passed.... I tapped again. Tyeglev sat up at once and listened.

"Knock ... knock ... knock! Knock ... knock ... knock!"

Through my half-closed eyelids in the whitish light of the night I could distinctly see every movement he

made. He turned his face first to the window then to the door. It certainly was difficult to make out where the

sound came from: it seemed to float round the room, to glide along the walls. I had accidentally hit upon a

kind of sounding board.

"Ridel!" cried Tyeglev at last, "Ridel! Ridel!"

"Why, what is it?" I asked, yawning.



7/114

"Do you mean to say you don't hear anything? There is someone knocking."

"Well, what if there is?" I answered and again pretended to be asleep and even snored.

Tyeglev subsided.

"Knock ... knock ... knock!"

"Who is there?" Tyeglev shouted. "Come in!"

No one answered, of course.


Tyeglev jumped out of bed, opened the window and thrusting out his head, cried wildly, "Who is there? Who

is knocking?" Then he opened the door and repeated his question. A horse neighed in the distance--that was

all.

He went back towards his bed.


Tyeglev instantly turned round and sat down.


He rapidly put on his boots, threw his overcoat over his shoulders and unhooking his sword from the wall,

went out of the hut. I heard him walk round it twice, asking all the time, "Who is there? Who goes there? Who

is knocking?" Then he was suddenly silent, stood still outside near the corner where I was lying and without

uttering another word, came back into the hut and lay down without taking off his boots and overcoat.

"Knock ... knock ... knock!" I began again. "Knock ... knock ... knock!"

But Tyeglev did not stir, did not ask who was knocking, and merely propped his head on his hand.

Seeing that this no longer acted, after an interval I pretended to wake up and, looking at Tyeglev, assumed an

air of astonishment.

"Have you been out?" I asked.

"Yes," he answered unconcernedly.

"Did you still hear the knocking?"

"Yes."

"And you met no one?"

"No."

"And did the knocking stop?"



8/114

"I don't know. I don't care now."

"Now? Why now?"

Tyeglev did not answer.

I felt a little ashamed and a little vexed with him. I could not bring myself to acknowledge my prank,however.

"Do you know what?" I began, "I am convinced that it was all your imagination."

Tyeglev frowned. "Ah, you think so!"

"You say you heard a knocking?"

"It was not only knocking I heard."

"Why, what else?"

Tyeglev bent forward and bit his lips. He was evidently hesitating.

"I was called!" he brought out at last in a low voice and turned away his face.

"You were called? Who called you?"

"Someone...." Tyeglev still looked away. "A woman whom I had hitherto only believed to be dead ... but now

I know it for certain."

"I swear, Ilya Stepanitch," I cried, "this is all your imagination!"

"Imagination?" he repeated. "Would you like to hear it for yourself?"

"Yes."

"Then come outside."

VIII

I hurriedly dressed and went out of the hut with Tyeglev. On the side opposite to it there were no houses,

nothing but a low hurdle fence broken down in places, beyond which there was a rather sharp slope down to

the plain. Everything was still shrouded in mist and one could scarcely see anything twenty paces away.Tyeglev and I went up to the hurdle and stood still.

"Here," he said and bowed his head. "Stand still, keep quiet and listen!"

Like him I strained my ears, and I heard nothing except the ordinary, extremely faint but universal murmur,

the breathing of the night. Looking at each other in silence from time to time we stood motionless for several

minutes and were just on the point of going on.

"Ilyusha ..." I fancied I heard a whisper from behind the hurdle.

I glanced at Tyeglev but he seemed to have heard nothing--and still held his head bowed.



9/114

"Ilyusha ... ah, Ilyusha," sounded more distinctly than before--so distinctly that one could tell that the words

were uttered by a woman.

We both started and stared at each other.

"Well?" Tyeglev asked me in a whisper. "You won't doubt it now, will you?"

"Wait a minute," I answered as quietly. "It proves nothing. We must look whether there isn't anyone. Some

practical joker...."

I jumped over the fence--and went in the direction from which, as far as I could judge, the voice came.

I felt the earth soft and crumbling under my feet; long ridges stretched before me vanishing into the mist. I

was in the kitchen garden. But nothing was stirring around me or before me. Everything seemed spellbound in

the numbness of sleep. I went a few steps further.

"Who is there?" I cried as wildly as Tyeglev had.

"Prrr-r-r!" a startled corn-crake flew up almost under my feet and flew away as straight as a bullet.

Involuntarily I started.... What foolishness!

I looked back. Tyeglev was in sight at the spot where I left him. I went towards him.

"You will call in vain," he said. "That voice has come to us--to me--from far away."

He passed his hand over his face and with slow steps crossed the road towards the hut. But I did not want to

give in so quickly and went back into the kitchen garden. That someone really had three times called

"Ilyusha" I could not doubt; that there was something plaintive and mysterious in the call, I was forced to own

to myself.... But who knows, perhaps all this only appeared to be unaccountable and in reality could be

explained as simply as the knocking which had agitated Tyeglev so much.

I walked along beside the fence, stopping from time to time and looking about me. Close to the fence, at no

great distance from our hut, there stood an old leafy willow tree; it stood out, a big dark patch, against the

whiteness of the mist all round, that dim whiteness which perplexes and deadens the sight more than darkness

itself. All at once it seemed to me that something alive, fairly big, stirred on the ground near the willow.

Exclaiming "Stop! Who is there?" I rushed forward. I heard scurrying footsteps, like a hare's; a crouching

figure whisked by me, whether man or woman I could not tell.... I tried to clutch at it but did not succeed; I

stumbled, fell down and stung my face against a nettle. As I was getting up, leaning on the ground, I felt

something rough under my hand: it was a chased brass comb on a cord, such as peasants wear on their belt.

Further search led to nothing--and I went back to the hut with the comb in my hand, and my cheeks tingling.

IX

I found Tyeglev sitting on the bench. A candle was burning on the table before him and he was writing

something in a little album which he always had with him. Seeing me, he quickly put the album in his pocket

and began filling his pipe.

"Look here, my friend," I began, "what a trophy I have brought back from my expedition!" I showed him the

comb and told him what had happened to me near the willow. "I must have startled a thief," I added. "You

heard a horse was stolen from our neighbour yesterday?"



10/114

Tyeglev smiled frigidly and lighted his pipe. I sat down beside him.

"And do you still believe, Ilya Stepanitch," I said, "that the voice we heard came from those unknown

realms...."

He stopped me with a peremptory gesture.

"Ridel," he began, "I am in no mood for jesting, and so I beg you not to jest."

He certainly was in no mood for jesting. His face was changed. It looked paler, longer and more expressive.

His strange, "different" eyes kept shifting from one object to another.

"I never thought," he began again, "that I should reveal to another ... another man what you are about to hear

and what ought to have died ... yes, died, hidden in my breast; but it seems it is to be--and indeed I have no

choice. It is destiny! Listen."

And he told me a long story.

I have mentioned already that he was a poor hand at telling stories, but it was not only his lack of skill in

describing events that had happened to him that impressed me that night; the very sound of his voice, his

glances, the movements which he made with his fingers and his hands--everything about him, indeed, seemed

unnatural, unnecessary, false, in fact. I was very young and inexperienced in those days and did not know that

the habit of high-flown language and falsity of intonation and manner may become so ingrained in a man that

he is incapable of shaking it off: it is a sort of curse. Later in life I came across a lady who described to me the

effect on her of her son's death, of her "boundless" grief, of her fears for her reason, in such exaggerated

language, with such theatrical gestures, such melodramatic movements of her head and rolling of her eyes,

that I thought to myself, "How false and affected that lady is! She did not love her son at all!" And a week

afterwards I heard that the poor woman had really gone out of her mind. Since then I have become much more

careful in my judgments and have had far less confidence in my own impressions.

X

The story which Tyeglev told me was, briefly, as follows. He had living in Petersburg, besides his influential

uncle, an aunt, not influential but wealthy. As she had no children of her own she had adopted a little girl, an

orphan, of the working class, given her a liberal education and treated her like a daughter. She was called

Masha. Tyeglev saw her almost every day. It ended in their falling in love with one another and Masha's

giving herself to him. This was discovered. Tyeglev's aunt was fearfully incensed, she turned the luckless girl

out of her house in disgrace, and moved to Moscow where she adopted a young lady of noble birth and made

her her heiress. On her return to her own relations, poor and drunken people, Masha's lot was a bitter one.

Tyeglev had promised to marry her and did not keep his promise. At his last interview with her, he was forced

to speak out: she wanted to know the truth and wrung it out of him. "Well," she said, "if I am not to be yourwife, I know what there is left for me to do." More than a fortnight had passed since that last interview.

"I never for a moment deceived myself as to the meaning of her last words," added Tyeglev. "I am certain that

she has put an end to her life and ... and that it was hervoice, that it was she calling me ... to follow her there

... I recognisedher voice.... Well, there is but one end to it."

"But why didn't you marry her, Ilya Stepanitch?" I asked. "You ceased to love her?"

"No; I still love her passionately."

At this point I stared at Tyeglev. I remembered another friend of mine, a very intelligent man, who had a very



11/114

plain wife, neither intelligent nor rich and was very unhappy in his marriage. When someone in my presence

asked him why he had married and suggested that it was probably for love, he answered, "Not for love at all.

It simply happened." And in this case Tyeglev loved a girl passionately and did not marry her. Was it for the

same reason, then?

"Why don't you marry her, then?" I asked again.

Tyeglev's strange, drowsy eyes strayed over the table.

"There is ... no answering that ... in a few words," he began, hesitating. "There were reasons.... And besides,

she was ... a working-class girl. And then there is my uncle.... I was obliged to consider him, too."

"Your uncle?" I cried. "But what the devil do you want with your uncle whom you never see except at the

New Year when you go to congratulate him? Are you reckoning on his money? But he has got a dozen

children of his own!"

I spoke with heat.... Tyeglev winced and flushed ... flushed unevenly, in patches.

"Don't lecture me, if you please," he said dully. "I don't justify myself, however. I have ruined her life and

now I must pay the penalty...."

His head sank and he was silent. I found nothing to say, either.

XI

So we sat for a quarter of an hour. He looked away--I looked at him--and I noticed that the hair stood up and

curled above his forehead in a peculiar way, which, so I have heard from an army doctor who had had a great

many wounded pass through his hands, is always a symptom of intense overheating of the brain.... The

thought struck me again that fate really had laid a heavy hand on this man and that his comrades were right in

seeing something "fatal" in him. And yet inwardly I blamed him. "A working-class girl!" I thought, "a finesort of aristocrat you are yourself!"

"Perhaps you blame me, Ridel," Tyeglev began suddenly, as though guessing what I was thinking. "I am very

... unhappy myself. But what to do? What to do?"

He leaned his chin on his hand and began biting the broad flat nails of his short, red fingers, hard as iron.

"What I think, Ilya Stepanitch, is that you ought first to make certain whether your suppositions are correct....

Perhaps your lady love is alive and well." ("Shall I tell him the real explanation of the taps?" flashed through

my mind. "No--later.")

"She has not written to me since we have been in camp," observed Tyeglev.

"That proves nothing, Ilya Stepanitch."

Tyeglev waved me off. "No! she is certainly not in this world. She called me."

He suddenly turned to the window. "Someone is knocking again!"

I could not help laughing. "No, excuse me, Ilya Stepanitch! This time it is your nerves. You see, it is getting

light. In ten minutes the sun will be up--it is past three o'clock--and ghosts have no power in the day."



12/114

Tyeglev cast a gloomy glance at me and muttering through his teeth "good-bye," lay down on the bench and

turned his back on me.

I lay down, too, and before I fell asleep I remember I wondered why Tyeglev was always hinting at ... suicide.

What nonsense! What humbug! Of his own free will he had refused to marry her, had cast her off ... and now

he wanted to kill himself! There was no sense in it! He could not resist posing!

With these thoughts I fell into a sound sleep and when I opened my eyes the sun was already high in the

sky--and Tyeglev was not in the hut.

He had, so his servant said, gone to the town.

XII

I spent a very dull and wearisome day. Tyeglev did not return to dinner nor to supper; I did not expect my

brother. Towards evening a thick fog came on again, thicker even than the day before. I went to bed rather

early. I was awakened by a knocking under the window.

It was my turn to be startled!

The knock was repeated and so insistently distinct that one could have no doubt of its reality. I got up, opened

the window and saw Tyeglev. Wrapped in his great-coat, with his cap pulled over his eyes, he stood

motionless.

"Ilya Stepanitch!" I cried, "is that you? I gave up expecting you. Come in. Is the door locked?"

Tyeglev shook his head. "I do not intend to come in," he pronounced in a hollow tone. "I only want to ask you

to give this letter to the commanding officer to-morrow."

He gave me a big envelope sealed with five seals. I was astonished--however, I took the envelopemechanically. Tyeglev at once walked away into the middle of the road.

"Stop! stop!" I began. "Where are you going? Have you only just come? And what is the letter?"

"Do you promise to deliver it?" said Tyeglev, and moved away a few steps further. The fog blurred the

outlines of his figure. "Do you promise?"

"I promise ... but first--"

Tyeglev moved still further away and became a long dark blur. "Good-bye," I heard his voice. "Farewell,

Ridel, don't remember evil against me.... And don't forget Semyon...."

And the blur itself vanished.

This was too much. "Oh, the damned _poseur_," I thought. "You must always be straining after effect!" I felt

uneasy, however; an involuntary fear clutched at my heart. I flung on my great-coat and ran out into the road.

XIII

Yes; but where was I to go? The fog enveloped me on all sides. For five or six steps all round it was a little

transparent--but further away it stood up like a wall, thick and white like cotton wool. I turned to the right

along the village street; our house was the last but one in the village and beyond it came waste land overgrown



13/114

here and there with bushes; beyond the waste land, a quarter of a mile from the village, there was a birch

copse through which flowed the same little stream that lower down encircled our village. The moon stood, a

pale blur in the sky--but its light was not, as on the evening before, strong enough to penetrate the smoky

density of the fog and hung, a broad opaque canopy, overhead. I made my way out on to the open ground and

listened.... Not a sound from any direction, except the calling of the marsh birds.

"Tyeglev!" I cried. "Ilya Stepanitch!! Tyeglev!!"

My voice died away near me without an answer; it seemed as though the fog would not let it go further.

"Tyeglev!" I repeated.

No one answered.

I went forward at random. Twice I struck against a fence, once I nearly fell into a ditch, and almost stumbled

against a peasant's horse lying on the ground. "Tyeglev! Tyeglev!" I cried.

All at once, almost behind me, I heard a low voice, "Well, here I am. What do you want of me?"

I turned round quickly.

Before me stood Tyeglev with his hands hanging at his sides and with no cap on his head. His face was pale;

but his eyes looked animated and bigger than usual. His breathing came in deep, prolonged gasps through his

parted lips.

"Thank God!" I cried in an outburst of joy, and I gripped him by both hands. "Thank God! I was beginning to

despair of finding you. Aren't you ashamed of frightening me like this? Upon my word, Ilya Stepanitch!"

"What do you want of me?" repeated Tyeglev.

"I want ... I want you, in the first place, to come back home with me. And secondly, I want, I insist, I insist asa friend, that you explain to me at once the meaning of your actions--and of this letter to the colonel. Can

something unexpected have happened to you in Petersburg?"

"I found in Petersburg exactly what I expected," answered Tyeglev, without moving from the spot.

"That is ... you mean to say ... your friend ... this Masha...."

"She has taken her life," Tyeglev answered hurriedly and as it were angrily. "She was buried the day before

yesterday. She did not even leave a note for me. She poisoned herself."

Tyeglev hurriedly uttered these terrible words and still stood motionless as a stone.

I clasped my hands. "Is it possible? How dreadful! Your presentiment has come true.... That is awful!"

I stopped in confusion. Slowly and with a sort of triumph Tyeglev folded his arms.

"But why are we standing here?" I began. "Let us go home."

"Let us," said Tyeglev. "But how can we find the way in this fog?"

"There is a light in our windows, and we will make for it. Come along."



14/114

"You go ahead," answered Tyeglev. "I will follow you." We set off. We walked for five minutes and our

beacon light still did not appear; at last it gleamed before us in two red points. Tyeglev stepped evenly behind

me. I was desperately anxious to get home as quickly as possible and to learn from him all the details of his

unhappy expedition to Petersburg. Before we reached the hut, impressed by what he had said, I confessed to

him in an access of remorse and a sort of superstitious fear, that the mysterious knocking of the previous

evening had been my doing ... and what a tragic turn my jest had taken!

Tyeglev confined himself to observing that I had nothing to do with it--that something else had guided my

hand--and this only showed how little I knew him. His voice, strangely calm and even, sounded close to my

ear. "But you do not know me," he added. "I saw you smile yesterday when I spoke of the strength of my will.

You will come to know me--and you will remember my words."

The first hut of the village sprang out of the fog before us like some dark monster ... then the second, our hut,

emerged--and my setter dog began barking, probably scenting me.

I knocked at the window. "Semyon!" I shouted to Tyeglev's servant, "hey, Semyon! Make haste and open the

gate for us."

The gate creaked and opened; Semyon crossed the threshold.

"Ilya Stepanitch, come in," I said, and I looked round. But no Ilya Stepanitch was with me. Tyeglev had

vanished as though he had sunk into the earth.

I went into the hut feeling dazed.

XIV

Vexation with Tyeglev and with myself succeeded the amazement with which I was overcome at first.

"Your master is mad!" I blurted out to Semyon, "raving mad! He galloped off to Petersburg, then came backand is running about all over the place! I did get hold of him and brought him right up to the gate--and here he

has given me the slip again! To go out of doors on a night like this! He has chosen a nice time for a walk!"

"And why did I let go of his hand?" I reproached myself. Semyon looked at me in silence, as though intending

to say something--but after the fashion of servants in those days he simply shifted from one foot to the other

and said nothing.

"What time did he set off for town?" I asked sternly.

"At six o'clock in the morning."

"And how was he--did he seem anxious, depressed?" Semyon looked down. "Our master is a deep one," he

began. "Who can make him out? He told me to get out his new uniform when he was going out to town--and

then he curled himself."

"Curled himself?"

"Curled his hair. I got the curling tongs ready for him."

That, I confess, I had not expected. "Do you know a young lady," I asked Semyon, "a friend of Ilya

Stepanitch's. Her name is Masha."



15/114

"To be sure I know Marya Anempodistovna! A nice young lady."

"Is your master in love with this Marya ... et cetera?"

Semyon heaved a sigh. "That young lady is Ilya Stepanitch's undoing. For he is desperately in love with

her--and can't bring himself to marry her--and sorry to give her up, too. It's all his honour's faintheartedness.

He is very fond of her."

"What is she like then, pretty?" I inquired.

Semyon assumed a grave air. "She is the sort that the gentry like."

"And you?"

"She is not the right sort for us at all."

"How so?"

"Very thin in the body."

"If she died," I began, "do you think Ilya Stepanitch would not survive her?"

Semyon heaved a sigh again. "I can't venture to say that--there's no knowing with gentlemen ... but our master

is a deep one."

I took up from the table the big, rather thick letter that Tyeglev had given me and turned it over in my hands....

The address to "his honour the Commanding Officer of the Battery, Colonel So and So" (the name,

patronymic, and surname) was clearly and distinctly written. The word _urgent_, twice underlined, was

written in the top left-hand corner of the envelope.

"Listen, Semyon," I began. "I feel uneasy about your master. I fancy he has some mischief in his mind. We

must find him."

"Yes, sir," answered Semyon.

"It is true there is such a fog that one cannot see a couple of yards ahead; but all the same we must do our best.

We will each take a lantern and light a candle in each window--in case of need."

"Yes, sir," repeated Semyon. He lighted the lanterns and the candles and we set off.

XV

I can't describe how we wandered and lost our way! The lanterns were of no help to us; they did not in the

least dissipate the white, almost luminous mist which surrounded us. Several times Semyon and I lost each

other, in spite of the fact that we kept calling to each other and hallooing and at frequent intervals shouted--I:

"Tyeglev! Ilya Stepanitch!" and Semyon: "Mr. Tyeglev! Your honour!" The fog so bewildered us that we

wandered about as though in a dream; soon we were both hoarse; the fog penetrated right into one's chest. We

succeeded somehow by help of the candles in the windows in reaching the hut again. Our combined action

had been of no use--we merely handicapped each other--and so we made up our minds not to trouble

ourselves about getting separated but to go each our own way. He went to the left, I to the right and I soon

ceased to hear his voice. The fog seemed to have found its way into my brain and I wandered like one dazed,

simply shouting from time to time, "Tyeglev! Tyeglev!"



16/114

"Here!" I heard suddenly in answer.

Holy saints, how relieved I was! How I rushed in the direction from which the voice came.... A human figure

loomed dark before me.... I made for it. At last!

But instead of Tyeglev I saw another officer of the same battery, whose name was Tyelepnev.

"Was it you answered me?" I asked him.

"Was it you calling me?" he asked in his turn.

"No; I was calling Tyeglev."

"Tyeglev? Why, I met him a minute ago. What a fool of a night! One can't find the way home."

"You saw Tyeglev? Which way did he go?"

"That way, I fancy," said the officer, waving his hand in the air. "But one can't be sure of anything now. Do

you know, for instance, where the village is? The only hope is the dogs barking. It is a fool of a night! Let me

light a cigarette ... it will seem like a light on the way."

The officer was, so I fancied, a little exhilarated.

"Did Tyeglev say anything to you?" I asked.

"To be sure he did! I said to him, 'good evening, brother,' and he said, 'good-bye.' 'How good-bye? Why

good-bye.' 'I mean to shoot myself directly with a pistol.' He is a queer fish!"

My heart stood still. "You say he told you ..."

"He is a queer fish!" repeated the officer, and sauntered off.

I hardly had time to recover from what the officer had told me, when my own name, shouted several times as

it seemed with effort, caught my ear. I recognised Semyon's voice.

I called back ... he came to me.

XVI

"Well?" I asked him. "Have you found Ilya Stepanitch?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where?"

"Here, not far away."

"How ... have you found him? Is he alive?"

"To be sure. I have been talking to him." (A load was lifted from my heart.) "His honour was sitting in his

great-coat under a birch tree ... and he was all right. I put it to him, 'Won't you come home, Ilya Stepanitch;

Alexandr Vassilitch is very much worried about you.' And he said to me, 'What does he want to worry for! I



17/114

want to be in the fresh air. My head aches. Go home,' he said, 'and I will come later.'"

"And you left him?" I cried, clasping my hands.

"What else could I do? He told me to go ... how could I stay?"

All my fears came back to me at once.

"Take me to him this minute--do you hear? This minute! O Semyon, Semyon, I did not expect this of you!

You say he is not far off?"

"He is quite close, here, where the copse begins--he is sitting there. It is not more than five yards from the

river bank. I found him as I came alongside the river."

"Well, take me to him, take me to him."

Semyon set off ahead of me. "This way, sir.... We have only to get down to the river and it is close there."

But instead of getting down to the river we got into a hollow and found ourselves before an empty shed.

"Hey, stop!" Semyon cried suddenly. "I must have come too far to the right.... We must go that way, more to

the left...."

We turned to the left--and found ourselves among such high, rank weeds that we could scarcely get out.... I

could not remember such a tangled growth of weeds anywhere near our village. And then all at once a marsh

was squelching under our feet, and we saw little round moss-covered hillocks which I had never noticed

before either.... We turned back--a small hill was sharply before us and on the top of it stood a shanty--and in

it someone was snoring. Semyon and I shouted several times into the shanty; something stirred at the further

end of it, the straw rustled--and a hoarse voice shouted, "I am on guard."

We turned back again ... fields and fields, endless fields.... I felt ready to cry.... I remembered the words of the

fool in _King Lear_: "This night will turn us all to fools or madmen."

"Where are we to go?" I said in despair to Semyon.

"The devil must have led us astray, sir," answered the distracted servant. "It's not natural ... there's mischief at

the bottom of it!"

I would have checked him but at that instant my ear caught a sound, distinct but not loud, that engrossed my

whole attention. There was a faint "pop" as though someone had drawn a stiff cork from a narrow bottle-neck.

The sound came from somewhere not far off. Why the sound seemed to me strange and peculiar I could notsay, but at once I went towards it.

Semyon followed me. Within a few minutes something tall and broad loomed in the fog.

"The copse! here is the copse!" Semyon cried, delighted. "Yes, here ... and there is the master sitting under the

birch-tree.... There he is, sitting where I left him. That's he, surely enough!"

I looked intently. A man really was sitting with his back towards us, awkwardly huddled up under the

birch-tree. I hurriedly approached and recognised Tyeglev's great-coat, recognised his figure, his head bowed

on his breast. "Tyeglev!" I cried ... but he did not answer.



18/114

"Tyeglev!" I repeated, and laid my hand on his shoulder. Then he suddenly lurched forward, quickly and

obediently, as though he were waiting for my touch, and fell onto the grass. Semyon and I raised him at once

and turned him face upwards. It was not pale, but was lifeless and motionless; his clenched teeth gleamed

white--and his eyes, motionless, too, and wide open, kept their habitual, drowsy and "different" look.

"Good God!" Semyon said suddenly and showed me his hand stained crimson with blood.... The blood was

coming from under Tyeglev's great-coat, from the left side of his chest.

He had shot himself from a small, single-barreled pistol which was lying beside him. The faint pop I had

heard was the sound made by the fatal shot.

XVII

Tyeglev's suicide did not surprise his comrades very much. I have told you already that, according to their

ideas, as a "fatal" man he was bound to do something extraordinary, though perhaps they had not expected

that from him. In the letter to the colonel he asked him, in the first place, to have the name of Ilya Tyeglev

removed from the list of officers, as he had died by his own act, adding that in his cash-box there would be

found more than sufficient money to pay his debts,--and, secondly, to forward to the important personage at

that time commanding the whole corps of guards, an unsealed letter which was in the same envelope. This

second letter, of course, we all read; some of us took a copy of it. Tyeglev had evidently taken pains over the

composition of this letter.

"You know, Your Excellency" (so I remember the letter began), "you are so stern and severe over the slightest

negligence in uniform when a pale, trembling officer presents himself before you; and here am I now going to

meet our universal, righteous, incorruptible Judge, the Supreme Being, the Being of infinitely greater

consequence even than Your Excellency, and I am going to meet him in undress, in my great-coat, and even

without a cravat round my neck."

Oh, what a painful and unpleasant impression that phrase made upon me, with every word, every letter of it,

carefully written in the dead man's childish handwriting! Was it worth while, I asked myself, to invent suchrubbish at such a moment? But Tyeglev had evidently been pleased with the phrase: he had made use in it of

the accumulation of epithets and amplifications _ la_ Marlinsky, at that time in fashion. Further on he had

alluded to destiny, to persecution, to his vocation which had remained unfulfilled, to a mystery which he

would bear with him to the grave, to people who had not cared to understand him; he had even quoted lines

from some poet who had said of the crowd that it wore life "like a dog-collar" and clung to vice "like a

burdock"--and it was not free from mistakes in spelling. To tell the truth, this last letter of poor Tyeglev was

somewhat vulgar; and I can fancy the contemptuous surprise of the great personage to whom it was

addressed--I can imagine the tone in which he would pronounce "a worthless officer! ill weeds are cleared out

of the field!"

Only at the very end of the letter there was a sincere note from Tyeglev's heart. "Ah, Your Excellency," heconcluded his epistle, "I am an orphan, I had no one to love me as a child--and all held aloof from me ... and I

myself destroyed the only heart that gave itself to me!"

Semyon found in the pocket of Tyeglev's great-coat a little album from which his master was never separated.

But almost all the pages had been torn out; only one was left on which there was the following calculation:

Napoleon was born Ilya Tyeglev was born on August 15th, 1769. on January 7th, 1811. 1769 1811 15 7 8* 1+

----- ----- Total 1792 Total 1819

* August--the 8th month + January--the 1st month of the year. of the year.



19/114

1 1 7 8 9 1 2 9 --- --- Total 19! Total 19!

Napoleon died on May Ilya Tyeglev died on 5th, 1825. April 21st, 1834.

1825 1834 5 21 5* 7+ ----- ----- Total 1835 Total 1862

* May--the 5th month + July--the 7th month of the year. of the year.

1 1 8 8 3 6 5 23 -- -- Total 17! Total 17!

Poor fellow! Was not this perhaps why he became an artillery officer?

As a suicide he was buried outside the cemetery--and he was immediately forgotten.

XVIII

The day after Tyeglev's burial (I was still in the village waiting for my brother) Semyon came into the hut and

announced that Ilya wanted to see me.

"What Ilya?" I asked.

"Our pedlar."

I told Semyon to call him.

He made his appearance. He expressed some regret at the death of the lieutenant; wondered what could have

possessed him....

"Was he in debt to you?" I asked.

"No, sir. He always paid punctually for everything he had. But I tell you what," here the pedlar grinned, "you

have got something of mine."

"What is it?"

"Why, that," he pointed to the brass comb lying on the little toilet table. "A thing of little value," the fellow

went on, "but as it was a present ..."

All at once I raised my head. Something dawned upon me.

"Your name is Ilya?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was it you, then, I saw under the willow tree the other night?"

The pedlar winked, and grinned more broadly than ever.

"Yes, sir."

"And it was yourname that was called?"



20/114

"Yes, sir," the pedlar repeated with playful modesty. "There is a young girl here," he went on in a high

falsetto, "who, owing to the great strictness of her parents----"

"Very good, very good," I interrupted him, handed him the comb and dismissed him.

"So that was the 'Ilyusha,'" I thought, and I sank into philosophic reflections which I will not, however,

intrude upon you as I don't want to prevent anyone from believing in fate, predestination and such like.

When I was back in Petersburg I made inquiries about Masha. I even discovered the doctor who had treated

her. To my amazement I heard from him that she had died not through poisoning but of cholera! I told him

what I had heard from Tyeglev.

"Eh! Eh!" cried the doctor all at once. "Is that Tyeglev an artillery officer, a man of middle height and with a

stoop, speaks with a lisp?"

"Yes."

"Well, I thought so. That gentleman came to me--I had never seen him before--and began insisting that the

girl had poisoned herself. 'It was cholera,' I told him. 'Poison,' he said. 'It was cholera, I tell you,' I said. 'No, it

was poison,' he declared. I saw that the fellow was a sort of lunatic, with a broad base to his head--a sign of

obstinacy, he would not give over easily.... Well, it doesn't matter, I thought, the patient is dead.... 'Very well,'

I said, 'she poisoned herself if you prefer it.' He thanked me, even shook hands with me--and departed."

I told the doctor how the officer had shot himself the same day.

The doctor did not turn a hair--and only observed that there were all sorts of queer fellows in the world.

"There are indeed," I assented.

Yes, someone has said truly of suicides: until they carry out their design, no one believes them; and when theydo, no one regrets them.

Baden, 1870.

* * * * *

THE INN

On the high road to B., at an equal distance from the two towns through which it runs, there stood not long

ago a roomy inn, very well known to the drivers of troikas, peasants with trains of waggons, merchants,

clerks, pedlars and the numerous travellers of all sorts who journey upon our roads at all times of the year.Everyone used to call at the inn; only perhaps a landowner's coach, drawn by six home-bred horses, would

roll majestically by, which did not prevent either the coachman or the groom on the footboard from looking

with peculiar feeling and attention at the little porch so familiar to them; or some poor devil in a wretched

little cart and with three five-kopeck pieces in the bag in his bosom would urge on his weary nag when he

reached the prosperous inn, and would hasten on to some night's lodging in the hamlets that lie by the high

road in a peasant's hut, where he would find nothing but bread and hay, but, on the other hand, would not have

to pay an extra kopeck. Apart from its favourable situation, the inn with which our story deals had many

attractions: excellent water in two deep wells with creaking wheels and iron buckets on a chain; a spacious

yard with a tiled roof on posts; abundant stores of oats in the cellar; a warm outer room with a very huge

Russian stove with long horizontal flues attached that looked like titanic shoulders, and lastly two fairly clean

rooms with the walls covered with reddish lilac paper somewhat frayed at the lower edge with a painted



21/114

wooden sofa, chairs to match and two pots of geraniums in the windows, which were, however, never

cleaned--and were dingy with the dust of years. The inn had other advantages: the blacksmith's was close by,

the mill was just at hand; and, lastly, one could get a good meal in it, thanks to the cook, a fat and red-faced

peasant woman, who prepared rich and appetizing dishes and dealt out provisions without stint; the nearest

tavern was reckoned not half a mile away; the host kept snuff which though mixed with wood-ash, was

extremely pungent and pleasantly irritated the nose; in fact there were many reasons why visitors of all sorts

were never lacking in that inn. It was liked by those who used it--and that is the chief thing; without whichnothing, of course, would succeed and it was liked principally as it was said in the district, because the host

himself was very fortunate and successful in all his undertakings, though he did not much deserve his good

fortune; but it seems if a man is lucky, he is lucky.

The innkeeper was a man of the working class called Naum Ivanov. He was a man of middle height with

broad, stooping shoulders; he had a big round head and curly hair already grey, though he did not look more

than forty; a full and fresh face, a low but white and smooth forehead and little bright blue eyes, out of which

he looked in a very queer way from under his brows and yet with an insolent expression, a combination not

often met with. He always held his head down and seemed to turn it with difficulty, perhaps because his neck

was very short. He walked at a trot and did not swing his arms, but slowly moved them with his fists clenched

as he walked. When he smiled, and he smiled often without laughing, as it were smiling to himself, his thick

lips parted unpleasantly and displayed a row of close-set, brilliant teeth. He spoke jerkily and with a surly note

in his voice. He shaved his beard, but dressed in Russian style. His costume consisted of a long, always

threadbare, full coat, full breeches and shoes on his bare feet. He was often away from home on business and

he had a great deal of business--he was a horse-dealer, he rented land, had a market garden, bought up

orchards and traded in various ways--but his absences never lasted long; like a kite, to which he had

considerable resemblance, especially in the expression of his eyes, he used to return to his nest. He knew how

to keep that nest in order. He was everywhere, he listened to everything and gave orders, served out stores,

sent things out and made up his accounts himself, and never knocked off a farthing from anyone's account, but

never asked more than his due.

The visitors did not talk to him, and, indeed, he did not care to waste words. "I want your money and you

want my victuals," he used to say, as it were, jerking out each word: "We have not met for a christening; thetraveller has eaten, has fed his beasts, no need to sit on. If he is tired, let him sleep without chattering." The

labourers he kept were healthy grown-up men, but docile and well broken in; they were very much afraid of

him. He never touched intoxicating liquor and he used to give his men ten kopecks for vodka on the great

holidays; they did not dare to drink on other days. People like Naum quickly get rich ... but to the magnificent

position in which he found himself--and he was believed to be worth forty or fifty thousand roubles--Naum

Ivanov had not arrived by the strait path....

The inn had existed on the same spot on the high road twenty years before the time from which we date the

beginning of our story. It is true that it had not then the dark red shingle roof which made Naum Ivanov's inn

look like a gentleman's house; it was inferior in construction and had thatched roofs in the courtyard, and a

humble fence instead of a wall of logs; nor had it been distinguished by the triangular Greek pediment oncarved posts; but all the same it had been a capital inn--roomy, solid and warm--and travellers were glad to

frequent it. The innkeeper at that time was not Naum Ivanov, but a certain Akim Semyonitch, a serf belonging

to a neighbouring lady, Lizaveta Prohorovna Kuntse, the widow of a staff officer. This Akim was a shrewd

trading peasant who, having left home in his youth with two wretched nags to work as a carrier, had returned a

year later with three decent horses and had spent almost all the rest of his life on the high roads; he used to go

to Kazan and Odessa, to Orenburg and to Warsaw and abroad to Leipsic and used in the end to travel with two

teams, each of three stout, sturdy stallions, harnessed to two huge carts. Whether it was that he was sick of his

life of homeless wandering, whether it was that he wanted to rear a family (his wife had died in one of his

absences and what children she had borne him were dead also), anyway, he made up his mind at last to

abandon his old calling and to open an inn. With the permission of his mistress, he settled on the high road,

bought in her name about an acre and a half of land and built an inn upon it. The undertaking prospered. He



22/114

had more than enough money to furnish and stock it. The experience he had gained in the course of his years

of travelling from one end of Russia to another was of great advantage to him; he knew how to please his

visitors, especially his former mates, the drivers of troikas, many of whom he knew personally and whose

good-will is particularly valued by innkeepers, as they need so much food for themselves and their powerful

beasts. Akim's inn became celebrated for hundreds of miles round. People were even readier to stay with him

than with his successor, Naum, though Akim could not be compared with Naum as a manager. Under Akim

everything was in the old-fashioned style, snug, but not over clean; and his oats were apt to be light, or musty;the cooking, too, was somewhat indifferent: dishes were sometimes put on the table which would better have

been left in the oven and it was not that he was stingy with the provisions, but just that the cook had not

looked after them. On the other hand, he was ready to knock off something from the price and did not refuse

to trust a man's word for payment--he was a good man and a genial host. In talking, in entertaining, he was

lavish, too; he would sometimes chatter away over the samovar till his listeners pricked up their ears,

especially when he began telling them about Petersburg, about the Circassian steppes, or even about foreign

parts; and he liked getting a little drunk with a good companion, but not disgracefully so, more for the sake of

company, as his guests used to say of him. He was a great favourite with merchants and with all people of

what is called the old school, who do not set off for a journey without tightening up their belts and never go

into a room without making the sign of the cross, and never enter into conversation with a man without first

wishing him good health. Even Akim's appearance disposed people in his favour: he was tall, rather thin, but

graceful even at his advanced years; he had a long face, with fine-looking regular features, a high and open

brow, a straight and delicate nose and a small mouth. His brown and prominent eyes positively shone with

friendly gentleness, his soft, scanty hair curled in little rings about his neck; he had very little left on the top of

his head. Akim's voice was very pleasant, though weak; in his youth he had been a good singer, but continual

travelling in the open air in the winter had affected his chest. But he talked very smoothly and sweetly. When

he laughed wrinkles like rays that were very charming came round his eyes:--such wrinkles are only to be

seen in kind-hearted people. Akim's movements were for the most part deliberate and not without a certain

confidence and dignified courtesy befitting a man of experience who had seen a great deal in his day.

In fact, Akim--or Akim Semyonitch as he was called even in his mistress's house, to which he often went and

invariably on Sundays after mass--would have been excellent in all respects--if he had not had one weakness

which has been the ruin of many men on earth, and was in the end the ruin of him, too--a weakness for the fairsex. Akim's susceptibility was extreme, his heart could never resist a woman's glance: he melted before it like

the first snow of autumn in the sun ... and dearly he had to pay for his excessive sensibility.

For the first year after he had set up on the high road Akim was so busy with building his yard, stocking the

place, and all the business inseparable from moving into a new house that he had absolutely no time to think

of women and if any sinful thought came into his mind he immediately drove it away by reading various

devotional works for which he cherished a profound respect (he had learned to read when first he left home),

singing the psalms in a low voice or some other pious occupation. Besides, he was then in his forty-sixth year

and at that time of life every passion grows perceptibly calmer and cooler and the time for marrying was past.

Akim himself began to think that, as he expressed it, this foolishness was over and done with ... But evidently

there is no escaping one's fate.

Akim's former mistress, Lizaveta Prohorovna Kuntse, the widow of an officer of German extraction, was

herself a native of Mittau, where she had spent the first years of her childhood and where she had numerous

poor relations, about whom she concerned herself very little, especially after a casual visit from one of her

brothers, an infantry officer of the line. On the day after his arrival he had made a great disturbance and

almost beaten the lady of the house, calling her "du lumpenmamselle," though only the evening before he had

called her in broken Russian: "sister and benefactor." Lizaveta Prohorovna lived almost permanently on her

pretty estate which had been won by the labours of her husband who had been an architect. She managed it

herself and managed it very well. Lizaveta Prohorovna never let slip the slightest advantage; she turned

everything into profit for herself; and this, as well as her extraordinary capacity for making a farthing do the

work of a halfpenny, betrayed her German origin; in everything else she had become very Russian. She kept a



23/114

considerable number of house serfs, especially many maids, who earned their salt, however: from morning to

night their backs were bent over their work. She liked driving out in her carriage with grooms in livery on the

footboard. She liked listening to gossip and scandal and was a clever scandal-monger herself; she liked to

lavish favours upon someone, then suddenly crush him with her displeasure, in fact, Lizaveta Prohorovna

behaved exactly like a lady. Akim was in her good graces; he paid her punctually every year a very

considerable sum in lieu of service; she talked graciously to him and even, in jest, invited him as a guest ... but

it was precisely in his mistress's house that trouble was in store for Akim.

Among Lizaveta Prohorovna's maidservants was an orphan girl of twenty called Dunyasha. She was

good-looking, graceful and neat-handed; though her features were irregular, they were pleasing; her fresh

complexion, her thick flaxen hair, her lively grey eyes, her little round nose, her rosy lips and above all her

half-mocking, half-provocative expression--were all rather charming in their way. At the same time, in spite

of her forlorn position, she was strict, almost haughty in her deportment. She came of a long line of house

serfs. Her father, Arefy, had been a butler for thirty years, while her grandfather, Stepan had been valet to a

prince and officer of the Guards long since dead. She dressed neatly and was vain over her hands, which were

certainly very beautiful. Dunyasha made a show of great disdain for all her admirers; she listened to their

compliments with a self-complacent little smile and if she answered them at all it was usually some

exclamation such as: "Yes! Likely! As though I should! What next!" These exclamations were always on her

lips. Dunyasha had spent about three years being trained in Moscow where she had picked up the peculiar airs

and graces which distinguish maidservants who have been in Moscow or Petersburg. She was spoken of as a

girl of self-respect (high praise on the lips of house serfs) who, though she had seen something of life, had not

let herself down. She was rather clever with her needle, too, yet with all this Lizaveta Prohorovna was not

very warmly disposed toward her, thanks to the headmaid, Kirillovna, a sly and intriguing woman, no longer

young. Kirillovna exercised great influence over her mistress and very skilfully succeeded in getting rid of all

rivals.

With this Dunyasha Akim must needs fall in love! And he fell in love as he had never fallen in love before.

He saw her first at church: she had only just come back from Moscow.... Afterwards, he met her several times

in his mistress's house; finally he spent a whole evening with her at the steward's, where he had been invited

to tea in company with other highly respected persons. The house serfs did not disdain him, though he was notof their class and wore a beard; he was a man of education, could read and write and, what was more, had

money; and he did not dress like a peasant but wore a long full coat of black cloth, high boots of calf leather

and a kerchief on his neck. It is true that some of the house serfs did say among themselves that: "One can see

that he is not one of us," but to his face they almost flattered him. On that evening at the steward's Dunyasha

made a complete conquest of Akim's susceptible heart, though she said not a single word in answer to his

ingratiating speeches and only looked sideways at him from time to time as though wondering why that

peasant was there. All that only added fuel to the flames. He went home, pondered and pondered and made up

his mind to win her hand.... She had somehow "bewitched" him. But how can I describe the wrath and

indignation of Dunyasha when five days later Kirillovna with a friendly air invited her into her room and told

her that Akim (and evidently he knew how to set to work) that bearded peasant Akim, to sit by whose side she

considered almost an indignity, was courting her.

Dunyasha first flushed crimson, then she gave a forced laugh, then she burst into tears; but Kirillovna made

her attack so artfully, made the girl feel her own position in the house so clearly, so tactfully hinted at the

presentable appearance, the wealth and blind devotion of Akim and finally mentioned so significantly the

wishes of their mistress that Dunyasha went out of the room with a look of hesitation on her face and meeting

Akim only gazed intently into his face and did not turn away. The indescribably lavish presents of the

love-sick man dissipated her last doubts. Lizaveta Prohorovna, to whom Akim in his joy took a hundred

peaches on a large silver dish, gave her consent to the marriage, and the marriage took place. Akim spared no

expense--and the bride, who on the eve of her wedding at her farewell party to her girl friends sat looking a

figure of misery, and who cried all the next morning while Kirillovna was dressing her for the wedding, was

soon comforted.... Her mistress gave her her own shawl to wear in the church and Akim presented her the



24/114

same day with one like it, almost superior.

And so Akim was married, and took his young bride home.... They began their life together.... Dunyasha

turned out to be a poor housewife, a poor helpmate to her husband. She took no interest in anything, was

melancholy and depressed unless some officer sitting by the big samovar noticed her and paid her

compliments; she was often absent, sometimes in the town shopping, sometimes at the mistress's house, which

was only three miles from the inn. There she felt at home, there she was surrounded by her own people; thegirls envied her finery. Kirillovna regaled her with tea; Lizaveta Prohorovna herself talked to her. But even

these visits did not pass without some bitter experiences for Dunyasha.... As an innkeeper's wife, for instance,

she could not wear a hat and was obliged to tie up her head in a kerchief, "like a merchant's lady," said sly

Kirillovna, "like a working woman," thought Dunyasha to herself.

More than once Akim recalled the words of his only relation, an uncle who had lived in solitude without a

family for years: "Well, Akimushka, my lad," he had said, meeting him in the street, "I hear you are getting

married."

"Why, yes, what of it?"

"Ech, Akim, Akim. You are above us peasants now, there's no denying that; but you are not on her level

either."

"In what way not on her level?"

"Why, in that way, for instance," his uncle had answered, pointing to Akim's beard, which he had begun to

clip in order to please his betrothed, though he had refused to shave it completely.... Akim looked down; while

the old man turned away, wrapped his tattered sheepskin about him and walked away, shaking his head.

Yes, more than once Akim sank into thought, cleared his throat and sighed.... But his love for his pretty wife

was no less; he was proud of her, especially when he compared her not merely with peasant women, or with

his first wife, to whom he had been married at sixteen, but with other serf girls; "look what a fine bird we havecaught," he thought to himself.... Her slightest caress gave him immense pleasure. "Maybe," he thought, "she

will get used to it; maybe she will get into the way of it." Meanwhile her behaviour was irreproachable and no

one could say anything against her.

Several years passed like this. Dunyasha really did end by growing used to her way of life. Akim's love for

her and confidence in her only increased as he grew older; her girl friends, who had been married not to

peasants, were suffering cruel hardships, either from poverty or from having fallen into bad hands.... Akim

went on getting richer and richer. Everything succeeded with him--he was always lucky; only one thing was a

grief: God had not given him children. Dunyasha was by now over five and twenty; everyone addressed her as

Avdotya Arefyevna. She never became a real housewife, however--but she grew fond of her house, looked

after the stores and superintended the woman who worked in the house. It is true that she did all this only aftera fashion; she did not keep up a high standard of cleanliness and order; on the other hand, her portrait painted

in oils and ordered by herself from a local artist, the son of the parish deacon, hung on the wall of the chief

room beside that of Akim. She was depicted in a white dress with a yellow shawl with six strings of big pearls

round her neck, long earrings, and a ring on every finger. The portrait was recognisable though the artist had

painted her excessively stout and rosy--and had made her eyes not grey but black and even slightly

squinting.... Akim's was a complete failure, the portrait had come out dark--_ la_ Rembrandt--so that

sometimes a visitor would go up to it, look at it and merely give an inarticulate murmur. Avdotya had taken to

being rather careless in her dress; she would fling a big shawl over her shoulders, while the dress under it was

put on anyhow: she was overcome by laziness, that sighing apathetic drowsy laziness to which the Russian is

only too liable, especially when his livelihood is secure....



25/114

With all that, the fortunes of Akim and his wife prospered exceedingly; they lived in harmony and had the

reputation of an exemplary pair. But just as a squirrel will wash its face at the very instant when the sportsman

is aiming at it, man has no presentiment of his troubles, till all of a sudden the ground gives way under him

like ice.

One autumn evening a merchant in the drapery line put up at Akim's inn. He was journeying by various

cross-country roads from Moscow to Harkov with two loaded tilt carts; he was one of those travelling traderswhose arrival is sometimes awaited with such impatience by country gentlemen and still more by their wives

and daughters. This travelling merchant, an elderly man, had with him two companions, or, speaking more

correctly, two workmen, one thin, pale and hunchbacked, the other a fine, handsome young fellow of twenty.

They asked for supper, then sat down to tea; the merchant invited the innkeeper and his wife to take a cup

with him, they did not refuse. A conversation quickly sprang up between the two old men (Akim was

fifty-six); the merchant inquired about the gentry of the neighbourhood and no one could give him more

useful information about them than Akim; the hunchbacked workman spent his time looking after the carts

and finally went off to bed; it fell to Avdotya to talk to the other one.... She sat by him and said little, rather

listening to what he told her, but it was evident that his talk pleased her; her face grew more animated, the

colour came into her cheeks and she laughed readily and often. The young workman sat almost motionless

with his curly head bent over the table; he spoke quietly, without haste and without raising his voice; but his

eyes, not large but saucily bright and blue, were rivetted on Avdotya; at first she turned away from them, then

she, too, began looking him in the face. The young fellow's face was fresh and smooth as a Crimean apple; he

often smiled and tapped with his white fingers on his chin covered with soft dark down. He spoke like a

merchant, but very freely and with a sort of careless self-confidence and went on looking at her with the same

intent, impudent stare.... All at once he moved a little closer to her and without the slightest change of

countenance said to her: "Avdotya Arefyevna, there's no one like you in the world; I am ready to die for you."

Avdotya laughed aloud.

"What is it?" asked Akim.

"Why, he keeps saying such funny things," she said, without any particular embarrassment.

The old merchant grinned.

"Ha, ha, yes, my Naum is such a funny fellow, don't listen to him."

"Oh! Really! As though I should," she answered, and shook her head.

"Ha, ha, of course not," observed the old man. "But, however," he went on in a singsong voice, "we will take

our leave; we are thoroughly satisfied, it is time for bed, ..." and he got up.

"We are well satisfied, too," Akim brought out and he got up, "for your entertainment, that is, but we wish youa good night. Avdotyushka, come along."

Avdotya got up as it were unwillingly. Naum, too, got up after her ... the party broke up. The innkeeper and

his wife went off to the little lobby partitioned off, which served them as a bedroom. Akim was snoring

immediately. It was a long time before Avdotya could get to sleep.... At first she lay still, turning her face to

the wall, then she began tossing from side to side on the hot feather bed, throwing off and pulling up the quilt

alternately ... then she sank into a light doze. Suddenly she heard from the yard a loud masculine voice: it was

singing a song of which it was impossible to distinguish the words, prolonging each note, though not with a

melancholy effect. Avdotya opened her eyes, propped herself on her elbows and listened.... The song went

on.... It rang out musically in the autumn air.



26/114

Akim raised his head.

"Who's that singing?" he asked.

"I don't know," she answered.

"He sings well," he added, after a brief pause. "Very well. What a strong voice. I used to sing in my day," hewent on. "And I sang well, too, but my voice has gone. That's a fine voice. It must be that young fellow

singing, Naum is his name, isn't it?" And he turned over on the other side, gav

Documents

Turgenev, Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories